Today’s blog post comes from Katja, who is well known around Newman, but also involved in the Montreal Catholic Challenge Movement.

Caterina di Giacomo di Benincasa was born on 25 March 1347. She refused to live the life imagined for her by her parents by turning away from the tradition of marrying her sister’s widowed husband. She showed her resistance by fasting vigorously; an act of piety that she would continue throughout her life.

At long last, her parents allowed her to join the “Mantellate”, the local association of Dominican tertiaries. She chose to live an active and prayerful life outside a convent’s walls following the model of the Dominicans. She discovered a passion for politics, and did not let the fact that she was a woman impede her involvement in political matters throughout Europe. She learned to write after relying on secretaries to compose her letters for years, and is now seen as one of the higher ranked mystics and spiritual writers in the church’s history.

Although this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to her accomplishments and exceptional life, the monumental impact she had in Europe can be reflected with the declarations of not one, but three Popes. In his decree of 13 April 1866, Pope Pius IX declared Catherine of Siena to be a co-patroness of Rome. On 18 June 1939 Pope Pius XII named her a joint Patron Saint of Italy along with Saint Francis of Assisi. On 1 October 1999, Pope John Paul II made her one of Europe’s patron saints, along with Edith Stein and Bridget of Sweden. She is also the patroness of the historically Catholic American woman’s fraternity, Theta Phi Alpha.

One of the most notorious quotes from St. Catherine of Siena is: “Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire.” What a daunting idea, is it not? How are we to know who God meant us to be? Are we not all on our journey towards Christ, being told to just Trust in God?

Although this may be true, the general idea of being who God meant you to be is no foreign concept. It may be daunting but the general message is this: Become the Best Version of Yourself. This is precisely what all saints have done; they have become the best version of themselves, thus becoming who God meant them to be. We are all called to be saints, so we are all called to become the best versions of ourselves.

Anyone who has heard of Matthew Kelly has most likely heard this phrase before. God doesn’t want you to become a second-rate version of anyone. You have been created for a purpose, and to be the best YOU you can be.

In the Western world today, we are constantly being bombarded with who we should be. We are told what we should want, how our lives should look like, and what values we should have. This attitude of cramming people into one cookie-cutter shape of life’s ideals, isn’t what God wants for us (I’m pretty sure). The way secular society is telling everyone to be (superficially) happy has no lasting happiness; it’s all about immediate gratification. Money, huge houses, expensive cars… does that really matter at the end of the day? Do you feel fulfilled with these ideas in mind? Fitting yourself into someone else’s idea of happiness is not necessarily the way to find your own.

How do you become the best YOU?

What brings you fulfillment? I’m talking about feeling whole, balanced and joyful. Personally, it’s through helping others that I feel connected with God, other people, and myself. I’m blessed enough to have found a career avenue that allows me to help others; Social Work. Though I’m still a student, it excites me to work towards the end goal of having the opportunity to help others help themselves. This wasn’t always the case however. I began my academic career studying science. For me, this was not how I was meant to live my life. I didn’t have joy, I didn’t feel fulfilled and it all felt like I was doing something someone else wanted me to do. I couldn’t have Set the World on Fire by becoming what my parents thought I should become.

God has a plan for you, and that plan is for you to truly become the best version of yourself that you can possibly be. Matthew Kelly presents his readers with 4 basic avenues to give attention to in order to have more clarity on who the best version of yourself is.

1. Emotional (attention and time given to important relationships)
2. Physical (exercise, proper eating habits)
3. Intellectual (academic, indulging in books)
4. Spiritual (taking time to get re-acquainted with God)

When those 4 areas of life are getting the attention they deserve, it’s inevitable that one will feel more alive and joyful. The secret to living your life with purpose isn’t much of a secret at all. By doing what we know brings us deep, internal joy and makes us feel balanced and connected, we can then live our lives everyday with passion. This is how we become the best version of ourselves.

Setting the world on fire doesn’t necessarily need to be a worldwide movement. Authentic joy breeds more joy in the lives of people you touch. Naturally, as with anything worthwhile, it takes some time to figure out what you’re supposed to do. We’re spoiled for choice when it comes to life-paths, so it’s all too common to be confused. However, if you live your life trying your very best to be the best version of yourself, you may find your life changing as you give more attention to the things in your life which you value most.

Of course, above all else, the place to start is through prayer. Sit with God, and ask Him for guidance. It is with Him that you can truly Set the World On Fire.

Sources:

Catherine of Siena. (n.d.). Retrieved April 29, 2015, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catherine_of_Siena

Kelly, M. (2004). The rhythm of life: Living every day with passion and purpose. New York: Fireside Books.

Today on the blog we welcome back a regular blogger, our favourite Jesuit, Brother Dan Leckman! 

Although I have not set foot on McGill campus in more than a week, I can imagine the mood these days: the tense looks on people’s faces, the tired bodies dragging around, pushing individuals to stay awake just one more hour. The nights of agony, bleeding into dawns of absolute terror. Hmm…maybe that was just the way I lived exam period, but it certainly did resemble a horror movie at times!! It shouldn’t be too hard to understand why it’s during one such never ending sleepless nights of anguish that I began to pray again! Amazingly enough, despite the fact that I knew so little about God and my faith, I already understood that even in the darkest hours, God’s light could radiate in my life (after all, ‘even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise’. Extra credit points for anyone who isn’t Tim Blais or Holly Ann that can correctly identify the source of that quote! Yeah, even my blog has an exam feel to it. Didn’t see that coming did you!!?)

But let’s move away from my antics for a second here, and stay with this idea of the triumph of God’s light over our darkness. What is our reaction to this notion of having a constant source of light in our life? Do we really understand the full dimension of God’s love for us, and how transformative it is? All too often, Christians answer the same way “Yes, I understand that God loves me, and this is a source of comfort for me. God is my shelter, and I am at peace. I feel renewed in his love.” Well good for you Mr/Mrs holy pants, but tell me: How do you LIVE that renewal? We just spent 40 + days praying with wonderful passages like the one from Ezekiel 36:26, (this whole notion that God is taking our heart of stone and making it into a heart of flesh) which poetically emphasizes how we ought to be transformed in order to more fully receive God’s word, God’s light, and God’s truth in our lives. But how does one live out the idea of that transformation?

The answer we can receive from the Church is dramatic and beautiful: We are called to dedicate every ounce of our being to caring for others. We are called to actively participate in the building of God’s kingdom of justice, and to always have our inner (spiritual) eye on the well-being of everyone we encounter. While many Christian communities hear and live out this call, I feel it’s more accentuated in the Catholic Church through our doctrine of Social Justice, and through the many works of charity and mercy that come from religious and lay people alike.  So it’s not like we don’t have a solid structure to help us with the process of transformation, both spiritually, and physically. And yet, all too often, many of us come back to that original feeling of… comfort, and Inner Peace. Being ‘Zen’ becomes more important than being forgiving, being caring for the other. In short, we become complacent. Not many pontiffs have had the guts to call us out against this modern sin of complacency, but Pope Francis has never hesitated doing so numerous times. His most poignant reference to this great sickness that we have in our Church and in the world came for me, this past Good Friday.

I decided to watch the whole service recently as I was ‘peacefully’ trying to work on my budget for the upcoming month. As I struggled to crunch numbers, I occasionally looked up to see the pretty images from the Via Crucis.  By the end of it, Francis began to recite a prayer that would take completely catch me unaware:

“In you, sold, betrayed, crucified by your …we see our daily betrayals and our ‘unfaithfulness.”

Those words, spoken through the translator, plunged deep into my heart, and awakened something within me. Was it shame, a feeling of guilt for all the times when I felt my unfaithfulness or indifference triumphed over the light of God in my Iife? I wasn’t sure. Whatever it was, it caused me to look up, see his pensive face in prayer as he was reading, and my heart of stone trembled. He continued:

“…In your face, that has been slapped, spat on and disfigured, we see the brutality of our sins.

In the cruelty of your Passion, we see the cruelty of our heart and our actions.

In your feeling abandoned, we see all those who have been abandoned by their family, by society, by people’s attention and solidarity.

In your sacrificed, lacerated and tormented body, we see the body of our brothers and sisters abandoned along the roadside, disfigured by our negligence and our indifference.”

This was incredibly unusual for me to hear anything like this. We often meditate on the suffering of Christ through the suffering of the poor and marginalized in our own world, but how often does that reflection place usas one of the ones abusing our Lord in his Passion. Our liturgy does prepare us during this season, to be part of the crowd that shouts out ‘crucify him’ but it does not prepare us for the consequences of being in that place that rejects the light and love of our Lord. Already, this was too much for me to cope with, but of course, he still wasn’t done!

“…In you, Divine Love, we still see today our brothers and sisters who are persecuted, decapitated and crucified for their faith in you, in front of our eyes or often with our silent complicity.

Let the feelings of faith, hope, charity and sorrow for our sins be ingrained in our hearts, Lord, and lead us to repent for our sins that have crucified you.

Lead us to transform our conversion made of words into a conversion of life and deeds…”

This is not language I usually like hearing. It ‘challenges’ this notion of a loving, forgiving God that I insist upon carrying in my spiritual luggage. Had a more conservative or traditional priest spoken those words, I may have tuned him out pretty quickly. But I know Pope Francis is concerned for our spiritual growth and welfare, and that he wishes to see a church grow in charity, simplicity and mercy. I also understand that he emphasizes ‘sin’ not as something that should produce shame within us, but as something that should encourage us to change. Our sinfulness is an expression of the ways we have turned away from God and others in our world. Consequently, the transformation we are called to is a movement towards God, but also towards others. It’s a long twisty journey with lots of dangerous paths, and I will stumble a lot along the way. However once I understand the depth of my savior’s love for me, how can I not accept to walk this path with him!? How can I turn my back on the light of God? How can I refuse to let that light shine before others as I journey with them with the same great heart that our Jesus carried had? Well, I still will do this once in a while, but I feel that on this amazing evening, I took more concrete steps in allowing my complacency to be replaced by compassion, and affection for the world. I pray that you all have a similar experience of transformation during this Easter season we are still journey with, and that God give you the courage to allow the divine light to enter every aspect of your life!

Today’s blog post comes from McGill Alumni Josiah Henderson-Zwicewicz.

Luke 24:13-35 tells the story of two disciples on the road to the village of Emmaus. At the beginning of the story, the two disciples are sad and confused. They had hoped that Jesus “was the one to redeem Israel” (v. 21); but they have heard that he was crucified, and can only conclude that their hope was in vain. They have heard the reports of the women disciples who had that morning discovered Jesus’ tomb empty, and of Peter and the other men who went to see for themselves. But they cannot imagine what the reason for the body’s absence can be.

As they talk together about these things on the road, the risen Jesus appears alongside them. The disciples’ “eyes were kept from recognising him” (v. 16). Like us, the disciples cannot really understand the resurrection of Jesus or recognise who he is without his help and instruction. What good news it is, then, that Jesus is alive!

Since his ascension, all kinds of people have claimed Jesus’ authority for all kinds of causes. In our churches, Jesus is portrayed by some as an inclusive and free-thinking innovator, and by others as a hard-line traditionalist. In our society, Jesus is portrayed by some as a radical revolutionary, by others as a moderate liberal, and by still others as a family-values conservative. In the academy and in popular culture, novel theories about Jesus abound. Jesus is claimed as a prophet of Islam, of the Bahá’í faith, of secular humanism, etc. In the midst of this profound confusion about Jesus’ identity, the resurrection means that Jesus is able to speak for himself. Because the risen Jesus chooses to reveal himself to and through the Church, the world can do better than guess at who Jesus is and what he means.

“And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.” (V. 27) On the road to Emmaus, Jesus reveals himself to the two disciples through the Old Testament Scriptures. This shows us at least two things: (1) That Jesus sees in “all” the Old Testament “things concerning himself” indicates that the primary purpose of the Old Testament is to reveal Jesus. Even though, superficially, the Old Testament doesn’t even seem to mention Jesus, on his authority the Church claims that it is actually all about Jesus. (2) That Scripture is the first medium the risen Jesus chooses to reveal himself to his disciples indicates the authority that the Bible has in the Church. Jesus gives his own personal authority to the words of Scripture, so that through Scripture we can learn who Jesus really is. In the Church, Scripture is read and preached publicly for this purpose, to inform and correct our understanding of Jesus, and to bring our thinking about Jesus under his own authority. When we read something about Jesus in Scripture, the risen Jesus is telling us that thing about himself.

Of course this goes for both Old and New Testament. On the day Jesus revealed himself to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, the New Testament had not yet even begun to be written, but this story does give us a strong hint at the nature and authority of the New Testament.

When Jesus and the two disciples arrive at Emmaus, Jesus pretends he is going farther, but allows the disciples to convince him to stay with them for the night. “When he was at table with them, he took the bread and blessed and broke it and gave it to them. And their eyes were opened, and they recognized him. And he vanished from their sight.” (Vv. 30-31) What finally opens the eyes of the disciples to Jesus’ true identity is the sight of Jesus taking bread, blessing it, breaking it and giving it to them. The disciples had seen Jesus do this once before (or had heard about it from the apostles), at his last supper. There, according to Luke 22:18, “he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, ‘This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’” By reminding the disciples of his own words and actions (in this case, his words and actions at the last supper), the mysterious stranger reveals to the disciples that he is the same Jesus who taught and who healed in Galilee and in Jerusalem, now risen from the dead. When we remember Jesus’ words and actions by reading the Gospels, Jesus also opens our eyes to see who he really is.

Jesus is alive and continues to reveal himself to his disciples here and now. Because Jesus is opening up the Scriptures to us as we journey through life, we will be able to say with the two disciples in this story, “Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?” (V. 32)

When Jesus reveals himself to the two disciples through the Scriptures and through the memory of his own words and actions, their response is to get up immediately and bring the good news to the other disciples, who are still confused about the missing body. So also, as Jesus reveals himself to us through both Old and New Testament, our continual response should be to share with others what Jesus is sharing with us. The risen Jesus reveals his identity to the Church through the Scriptures, and reveals himself to the world (deeply confused about Jesus as it is) through the witness of the Church.

Today’s post comes from our friendly neighbourhood campus minister, Terrel Joseph

Easter is the commemoration of Jesus’ rising from the dead! After 2000 years of Christianity, when most people hear this statement they don’t usually bat an eye. They often say something like, “for sure, Christianity is about the death and resurrection of Jesus, that is common knowledge”, just like Christmas is about a good tempered fat man in a red suit who breaks into peoples homes to leave gifts for their children, and St Patrick’s day is about little green leprechauns hording pots of gold at the end of the rainbow (by the way optical physics has proven that there isn’t an end to rainbows because rainbows are actually perfect circles. They only appear to have ends because of the horizon of the planet). People often treat the resurrection like a myth or folk story, like the recently released movie adaptation of Cinderella. Lot’s of people either like or dislike Cinderella because of the values it teaches children. But the resurrection story is very different from fairy tales like Cinderella. The writers of the New Testament were not telling us a fairy tale that inspired them to be better people, nor were they telling us an abstract myth that revealed some general truths about the world, that you can either like or dislike as you would a fairy tale. Rather, the New Testament authors were telling us about a real historical event that so moved them, that they felt compelled to travel to the ends of the world to proclaim this message. The first Christians wrote about a reality so incredible that they were willing to go to their deaths to defend it this claim.

Ok, well isn’t it true that lots of crazy people are willing to die for silly reasons? Some scholars have tried to argue that the Apostles and early disciples of Jesus must have just been crazy. This is plausible, but then it implies that tens of thousands of disciples of Jesus in the first couple centuries of Christianity were all crazy, and that all modern day Christians have been deceived by a 2000 year old tall tale. Alternatively, the constant tradition of the Christian community from the first Christians to this day is that those first martyrs for Jesus gave their lives not because they were radical extremes deceived by crazy people but because Jesus really did rise from the dead.

So were the first Christians all crazy or did Jesus really rise from the dead? The New Testament scolar N.T. Wright observed that it is practically impossible to explain the emergence of Christianity as a messianic movement apart from the resurrection. The first Christians all proclaimed that Jesus was the long awaited messiah of Israel, who was supposed to deal with the enemies of Israel, restore them to power, and rein as the Lord of the nations. However, there could be no clearer sign that someone was not the messiah, then that person being put to death by the enemies of Israel, or in this case, Jesus being crucified by the Romans. Yet, the first Christians, who were all Jews and very familiar with the prophesy of the messiah, all proclaimed that Jesus was the messiah. This only makes sense if Jesus really was raised from the dead.

Unlike myths and fairy tales, the events in the New Testament are real events grounded in a very particular time and place in human history. So the gospels can’t be treated like a fairy tale that has some good morals and some bad ones. The fact is, either Jesus was who he claimed to be, or he was a very bad person. Jesus either rose from the dead or he didn’t. It’s not a myth or fairy tale, it either happened or didn’t. But who then did Jesus claim to be? Lots of people today say that they don’t believe that he was God, but that he was definitely a good moral teacher, and as with any other moral teacher in human history, they freely pick and choose which ones of his teachings to believe, and which events of his life to take seriously. This is a nice idea but it doesn’t fit at all with what the gospels writers have witnessed about who Jesus was. Throughout the gospels Jesus consistently claimed to be a lot more then just a moral teacher. Jesus said and did things that could only make sense if he was also divine and these claims and actions are primarily what eventually lead to his execution. The religious and political leaders of first century Israel certainly didn’t think he was claiming to simply be a nice moral teacher, and neither does the Catholic Church today.

So if Jesus wasn’t just a nice moral teacher, but was God in human flesh, what does that mean for Christianity? It means, that Christianity isn’t primarily about being a nice moral person, and then afterwards what specific doctrines you believe that’s more of a personal decision. This is an attitude that a lot of people have today, that all that matters finally is that you are a good person, and then what you believe is a secondary matter. The problem is that this attitude is not at all consistent with the Gospel. The Gospel is that, Jesus really did died for our sins on the cross and rose from the dead, meaning that God’s love is more powerful that anything in the world, even death itself. This is how St Paul could say in his letter to the Church in Rome,

“For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Rom 8:38-39).

How does Paul know this? He knows this for certain because we killed God! We through all of the world’s negativity and violence at God, but God still returned in forgiving love, proving that the divine mercy of God is more powerful then anything in the world. Christianity then is primarily about proclaiming the still earth shattering truth of the death and resurrection of Jesus from the dead and inviting those who hear this gospel to repent, and change. The original Greek for repent is ‘metanoia’, which literally translated means beyond-mind. Because of the reality of the death and resurrection of Jesus, everything we once knew about the world has changed so we need to go beyond the mind we have, we need to change our mind, change our attitude, change the way we live our lives because of this truth. One of these new realities that has changed because of the resurrection of Jesus is the meaning of hope. As Christians we are not superstitions optimists that naively think everything will work out “happily ever after” like in Cinderella. Rather as Christians we can hope in a rational way because through the death and resurrection of Jesus we know for certain that Gods love can turn the suffering and death of one man into the source of eternal life for all. God’s love is more powerful then death itself. This doesn’t explain the problem of suffering and evil in the world, but it does allow us to address suffering in a meaningful way.

Being a Christian is a lot more then just being a good person. Because frankly, Jews, Muslims, atheists, agnostics, and peoples of all beliefs can all in principle be good moral people. The most compelling reason to be a Christian isn’t that we are the nicest or most moral people, even if Christian ethics does indeed produce nice moral people. The most compelling reason to be a Christian is because Jesus really did die for you on the cross, and he really did rise from the dead to prove that God’s love for us is more powerful then any of the evil in the world, and that in choosing to place Jesus at the center of our lives, and in choosing to repent and be baptised we too can gradually learn how to participate in God’s manner of loving! In the 2^nd century St Irenaeus of Lyon observed that “the glory of God is a human being fully alive”. And we become most fully alive when we dedicate our lives to learning more and more everyday how to love each other the way God loves! Because love is the source of human happiness! And God’s love is more powerful then death!

Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

Terrel Joseph

Campus Minister